Projects

Matthew M. Kavanagh, PhD works at the intersection of global health, politics, and law at Georgetown University. A political scientist by training, with a long history of work in global health policy and politics, his research and writing focuses on the political economy of health policy in low- and middle-income countries and the political impact of human and constitutional rights on population health. He is Assistant Professor of Global Health, Visiting Professor of Law, and directs the Global Health Policy & Politics Initiative at the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law. He has done research and policy work in in South Africa, Malawi, Haiti, Lesotho, India, and Thailand and was a visiting researcher at the South African Institute for Advanced Constitutional, Public, Human Rights, and International Law in Johannesburg. Grants for this work have come from the National Science Foundation, U.S. State Department, World Health Organization, amfAR: foundation for AIDS research, and others.

Dr. Kavanagh is as a member of the UNAIDS Scientific & Technical Advisory Committee and the council of the American Political Science Association Health Politics and Policy Section. Prior to his academic positions, he led transnational policy efforts at NGOs in the U.S. and Southern Africa focused on HIV and tuberculosis treatment, international trade, and water rights. He has presented his research and analysis before the U.N. Special Rapporteur for the Right to Health, members of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, House Ways and Means Committee, and the U.S. Trade Representative.

His work has appeared in The Lancet, JAMA, Foreign Policy, Journal of International Affairs, Studies in Comparative International Development, Health & Human Rights and other leading journals and he have been interviewed in outlets including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, BBC, and Science on the politics of global health.

He completed a PhD in political science from the University of Pennsylvania, certificate in health law from Penn’s law school, Masters in communities and policy from Harvard University and BA from Vassar College.